The Lede: As reported on Sunday, one of the search and rescue teams deployed to Haiti after the earthquake was sent by the Israel Defense Forces. On Tuesday, The Los Angeles Times noted a Palestinian news agency report which said, 'Palestinians in Gaza set off for the Red Cross headquarters on Monday to offer donations and financial support for the victims of Haiti's devastating earthquake.'... Jamal Al-Khudary, head of the Committee to Break the Siege, told the news agency that the Red Cross director in Gaza 'was only able to accept financial donations as transferring goods out of the Strip is near impossible.'Juan Cole, Informed Comment: When a relief plant for [Doctors] Without Borders isn't allowed to land by US military authorities at the airport in Port-au-Prince, there is an outcry. But Israeli military authorities will not allow any relief planes at all to land in the Gaza Strip. (The Israelis destroyed Gaza's airport in 2001.)
We cheer when a Haitian child is rescued from the rubble, but ignore the thousands of Gazan children who are suffering malnutrition and being buried by Israeli policy, a policy that is a war crime... The situation in Gaza is not as dire as that in Haiti. But it is very, very bad, and it is man-made. UNICEF report here. World Health Organization fact sheet on Gaza here.
